15: Donkey Wisdom

The central reason for writing this blog at hornconcerto.net is to give an idea of the life of a composer during the composition of a major work. Now if the gestation of Lightfall had gone smoothly, as it so often does, then perhaps there would have been very little to write about; certainly we could have jumped from post 02: Getting a Commission to post 16: Phoenix. Anyway, the intention is to show warts and all and today we have the biggest wart of all…

Fibonacci Phyllotaxis

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Apparently I am partial to a bit of sleepwalking during stressful composing times; not to mention the nightmares that I can never remember. By day, I become terrified that I have run dry and constantly question my claim to being a real composer. I was convinced that in a few month’s time thousands of people at the Sydney Opera House will discover I am a fraud. By a quirk of fate Lightfall was the only new major commission in the Sydney Symphony’s 2009 season and I felt (and still feel) an immense responsibility to write a work that will do well by the orchestra, the audience and contemporary music generally. I constantly needed to remind myself of Aesop’s fable of the Man, his Son and the Donkey.

Most of my music comes relatively easily; sometimes straight away without effort, sometimes after a short, uncertain gestation period. The situation that I found myself in for the first three months of 2009 with the composition of Lightfall was one I have experienced to this degree only twice before: during the composition of Peace On Earth (2001) and of Freefall (2007). In each case there was a long, painful gestation period followed by an outburst of creativity and fast completion.

It has been pointed out to me a number of times by other composers and people whose opinion I respect that I am, by nature, an intuitive composer and that I should not allow myself to get bogged down in systems and methodology. I quite agree and yet often, once I have had some intuitive idea, I will analyse the life out of it. Charts of permutations, possibilities and inter-connections get drawn up and sketches made. After the first couple of days my heart is no longer in it but I persevere for weeks, or in this case for months, creating music that has little or no meaning to me, the exact type of music that I don’t want to write. The strangest thing is that, despite the concerted effort, all the fragments are spiritually and emotionally disconnected; in my case, a cerebral approach to unity produces its opposite: skin and flesh without a spine.

I must not give the wrong impression here. Without thematic and cellular unity, without close attention to micro- and macro-structural detail, music is just rambling noise pollution and there is enough of that in the world today. Analysis and exploration are always an integral part of composition, including the systems, charts and matrix tables; but for me, they should never be the driving force in the process of composition; they should offer possibilities not enforced routes and I am much happier stomping around my room trying to feel the structure than I am calculating with the Fibonacci sequence (attractive and fascinating as it is).

Guilt over how a serious composer is supposed to work has given me much grief for many years; but no more. Having experienced a breakthrough once again with Lightfall, I intend in future to do things my own way and suffer the critical consequences. This donkey’s going to walk himself to market from now on.